FFF--Growing Up in Coal Country...As a Female

The daily life of a woman in the Pennsylvania coal region during the 19^th and 20^th Centuries is clearly defined in Susan Campbell Bartoletti’s Growing Up in Coal Country (copy right 1996).

Gender specific domestic household duties were completed by the women. Then men worked in the mines and provided for the family. Young women were expected to learn all the household skills to take care of a home and family.

“Throughout coal country, mothers and daughters worked side by side. For them, Monday meant wash day; Tuesday, ironing; Wednesday, baking; Thursday, sewing; Friday, cleaning; Saturday, shopping and bathing; and Sunday, church, rest and recreation.”

 

Caption to the side of the picture:

On Mondays, women washed the clothes.  Canal Museum at Hugh Moore Park, Easton, Pennsylvania

Text in the picture:

[...]large brick ovens erected in the backyards.  Bread was a staple of every miner's lunch, and depending on the size of the family, twenty or more loaves of bread were baked each week.  The company houses turned black and gloomy from the soot that billowed out of the coal breaker.  To brighten up their homes, families erected colorful birdhouses outside.  Every family planted a garden and raised livestock, and the children helped their mothers tend fruits and vegetables, medicinal herbs and roots, chickens, ducks, rabbits, and pigeons.  Some coal companies offered prizes for the best garden or the largest tomato.  Helen Fedorsha, who grew up in Eckley Village, described how she cared for her family's garden:  "There [...]

 

On coal region woman identified as Pearl Santarelli in the book described her life as a young girl girl; “I was thirteen when I married. Massimino was twenty. I wanted to go out and play with the other girls, but I couldn’t because I was a married woman. I had to stay home and cook and clean for my husband.” 

I grew up in the Coal Region and I know the above details are pretty accurate based on my upbringing in a coal mining family.  My father is a four generation coal miner, mostly working in surface mining or “strip mining.” Women always held a lower status on my paternal side.  I commonly heard phrases like, “Women shouldn’t work and belong at home with the children,” or “Women belong in the kitchen.”  My paternal grandmother was a quiet woman and never questioned authority. She never drove and stayed home to raise 12 children. She would tell us stories about her life growing up.  I remember her talking about raising chickens, baking bread, picking berries, doing laundry, filling the wash tub and basically taking care of the males in the household.

Submitted Anonymously